a journal of analysis and comment
advancing public understanding of religion and education
(more on the Journal)

Spring 2007
Vol. 34 No. 2

Editor’s Preface

One consistent theme these days
from our social commentators is the polarization of so many aspects of our
public life, principally in the political and religious arenas.Civil discourse has been a consistent challenge.Our first article of this spring issue takes on this challenge in the
college classroom in the context of a discussion about faith.Francis Dominic Degnin takes us through a pedagogy he developed for
working through a definition of faith with students and, in the process, making
them more self-critical and self-aware in this ‘era of religious extremes.’

In our second article, Robbie
Steward and his colleagues explore religion and Christianity as points of
diversity within counseling training programs.Acknowledging the tension between psychology and religion, originating
with Freud and persisting through the 20th century, the authors note
the increasing strength of voices over the decade, countering this longstanding
tendency.In accordance with this
growing acknowledgement of the influence of religion on psychology, Steward and
his colleagues conducted a pilot study “to examine the level of preparedness
counselor trainees may have in working with religious clients.”A second “purpose is to examine Christian trainees perceptions of and
experiences in training” (p. 31).

A challenge to many liberal arts
colleges is maintaining their historic identity in an environment of increasing
religious pluralism.In the third
article of this issue, Robert Spach examines this ‘identity-relevance’
dilemma in a study of Presbyterian colleges in the
Southeast United States
.Spach begins with an analysis of
“the post-Enlightenment context of higher education and the contributions that
the Reformed theological tradition can make to how church-related colleges might
embody their distinctive educational vision.”He then examines how two colleges address “religious particularity and
diversity on their campuses.” (p. 56)

The impact of the Lilly
Endowment’s Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation (PTEV) was
the subject of one of our articles by Jennifer Haworth and Mary de Villiers in
the Winter 2006 issue.We revisit
this initiative in a multi-institutional study by Sarah Birmingham Drummond.She enumerates lessons learned about planning for change in Christian
colleges derived from the study of three distinctively different institutions:
one historically-black college, one small liberal arts college, and one large
Catholic university.

We track international issues in Religion
& Education and periodically publish pieces that we feel are of broad
interest for our readership and that highlight trans-national concerns.Our concluding article is one such piece and is contributed by Iftikhar
Ahmad.
Pakistan
is much in the news for its multifaceted role in the events in
Afghanistan
and
Iraq
.Professor Ahmad’s article
contributes one perspective to the Pakistani backstory by offering his analysis
of contending Islamic and liberal visions of citizenship education in
Pakistan
.He illustrates the difference that
emphases in textbooks can make in shaping the dispositions of the populace and,
in the process, sets into sharp relief the challenge of balancing these forces
that face President Musharraf.

The cover art for this issue is
called Diana by Antionette Simmons
Hodges. It was part of the October 2001 exhibit, A Question of Faith, at the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of
Art.